The court battle brewing between the children of the late Kollywood superstar Sivaji Ganesan offers a timely reminder about the challenges faced by women to inherit property under Hindu personal law.
Ganesan's daughters argue that they have an equal right to the properties of their late father, and that the will being used by their brothers to claim rights over several highly valued properties is fabricated.
While the issue of the genuineness of the will is going to have to be adjudicated by the Madras High Court, the fact that his daughters have to approach a court to secure their rights, shows that there is still a need to create awareness about the rights of women in the Hindu personal law even after these were secured over nearly a century of struggles in Parliament and the courts.
Here's what the law says.
With any inheritance issue, the first question to ask is always the same: did the deceased prepare a will before they died?
When a person prepares a will, they can decide exactly how their properties and other assets will be divided.
If a valid will has been prepared, that is, it was made by the person when they were sound of mind and had followed necessary formalities, including having proper witnesses, there are no guidelines or rules or restrictions that have to be followed.
In such circumstances, the person could bequeath all of their assets to just one child, or a friend, or a charity – the decision is purely theirs.
There is one restriction created by the Hindu personal law when it comes to what a person can put in their will, however. In general, a person cannot in their will specify how their share in the ancestral property of a 'Hindu Undivided Family' is to be distributed after their death.
Every child born into an HUF, gets a share in the property as a 'coparcener' – initially this was only for sons, not daughters, but the law was amended over the years (as will be seen in the section below).
If the coparcener's share in the ancestral property actually devolves to them, for instance, if there is a 'partition' of the property or dissolution of the HUF, then they can include the property in their will. But if not, any bequest in a will would be invalid.
If a person passes away without a will, then they have died intestate. In these circumstances, their self-acquired property will be distributed according to the relevant personal law applicable. For Hindus, this is codified in the Hindu Succession Act.
Hindu Males
Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act explains what happens to the self-acquired property of a Hindu male who dies intestate.
These are the rules which are relevant in the case of Sivaji Ganesan's estate, since it is argued that all his property was purchased by him through his own earnings, and wasn't ancestral property.
The Hindu Succession Act has a Schedule at its end that specifies two different classes of heirs for Hindu males.
Class I heirs include their children, widow and mother. In the event their children have pre-deceased them, then their grandchildren are also heirs who can inherit. If their children and grandchildren have pre-deceased them, then any greatgrandchildren will also be able to inherit. The widows of a pre-deceased son are also Class I heirs.
If a Hindu man dies intestate and there are any Class I heirs alive, then all these Class I heirs will inherit an equal share.
If there are no Class I heirs alive when a Hindu man dies, then the property will go to the Class II heirs, category by category based on who is alive at the time.
The first category in Class II is the father of the deceased. If the father is not alive, then the property will be shared between their brother, sister and children of their son's daughter (whoever is alive).
There are seven more categories, including great grandchildren by their daughters, children of their brothers or sisters, and other relatives of their father.
